Where the rubber meets the road

BOSTON – Timberland CEO Jeffrey Swartz has always walked the walk on corporate responsibility.

In fact, the 48-year-old steward of his family’s footwear company has taken huge, mountain-climbing strides in the Timberland boots he wears every day toward being more green and promoting social justice here in America and around the world.

The approach served the company well and in the 10 years it marched toward corporate responsibility its profits soared. Now the company’s revenue has declined dramatically and Swartz is still not giving up on the idealism that he believes helped establish the brand, and that he believes passionately is the only way to do business.

The question is whether these beliefs will bring success for the company and if not whether shareholders will be as patient with corporate responsibility if the earnings are not there.

Swartz recently stopped by GlobalPost’s offices to talk about some new environmental initiatives his company is taking on, including using recycled rubber for the soles of shoes as a way to develop a brand that is environmentally conscious and sustainable. He also talked about some serious challenges the business is facing amid the global economic crisis.

He spoke about family and faith, and corporate ethics, and personal challenges and hard times in America — and the places where all those themes intersect in his life.

The first thing I noticed about him is that he doesn’t like to sit down, at least not for long.

Swartz prefers to be all over the place. Looking out the window onto Boston Harbor and taking in a dramatic day of swirling clouds and a frothy chop on the water. Right away we fell into a conversation that was fast and frenetic. Full of ideas and stories. An hour later, we realized we were still standing.

He has a lot to say about the global economy and about the social responsibility that he believes lies at the heart of the best of American companies.

I asked him how integral his efforts toward corporate responsibility are to the company and whether in some instances the self-imposed standards for being green and making sure working conditions are fair and safe has hurt the business?

"Short-term, sometimes, absolutely. Yes," he said. 

But he also insisted, "Not sticking to principles wouldn’t just hurt business — it would tear the heart out of our collective chest. If our code insists that the right to assemble be available to workers, but a country won’t honor this — we don’t do business there. If a factory breaks the law, and illegally restrains workers from assembling we work to remediate with urgency, and then we withdraw if we can’t effect changes," he explained.

"We left a factory in China — a big one — after 2+ years of relentless engagement to get them
to behave honorably. Our competitors swarmed in the back door the minute we withdrew our production orders. We spent real money to move the volume from this disreputable factory to other factories.  Real costs — and yet we believed then and we do now — we had to act," he added.

It’s a philosophy that says business is not just about the bottom line, but also takes into account the balance of doing good in the world. As Swartz puts it, "We operate our business around the idea that commerce and justice do not have to be antithetical."

But there are many analysts who question how such standards are measured and what impact they truly have. Herman Leonard, a professor at Harvard Business School, wrote a case study on Timberland in 2004 titled "Timberland: Commerce and Justice."

The introduction to the study on  the  Harvard Business School website states that Timberland is a "well-developed, value-centric business" in which management faces a critical challenge: "How to measure the impact of its social justice activities?"

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